Monaco Tourist Authority

For decades, Monaco has been considered as a glamorous destination: land of mega yachts, billionaires & casinos. Our 2 square km country had a very strong identity which was mostly coming for our leisure side of the business.
We did have our successes with our leading luxury destination, but after the 2009 with the world financial crisis, all those stereotypes became negative as the meeting industry faced an identity problem. Corporate CEOs and event organizers have then intentionally avoided the Principality of Monaco, thinking it would be too expensive, to glamorous and not appropriated to host their events.
In 2014 & 2017, the Monaco Convention Bureau decided to create a new campaign and capitalise on its Monaco expertise – both as knowledge hub and as a business destination. The ultimate goal of these campaigns was to attract more major events and make Monaco a fully established leading destination for MICE & business.
Over the past five years, we have honed in on three main sectors that are driving the Principality’s meetings activity: IT, healthcare, and finance & consulting.
When the campaign was launched in 2013, the finance, medical and IT sectors accounted for 48%of Monaco’s business events, but in 2017, this number jumped up to 59%, with a market share of five points and six % increase on room nights compared to previous year.
Today, our campaign is considered a "best practice" on perception and reputation of meeting destination.
We successfully displayed a different image of Monaco without corrupting or compromising the core identity of our destination.